70 THE LAND MOLLUSCAN FAUNA OF BRITISH NEW GUINEA, 



myself collected G. rollsianus and P. brazierce upon Fergusson 

 Island, and these, with the ubiquitous L. vitreum, are the only 

 land shells yet known as indigenous to the group. These two 

 characteristic forms would indicate that the fauna of these 

 magnificent mountain islands will prove to be related rather to that 

 of the distant Louisiades than to that of the nearer mainland. 



1. OXYTES HERCULES, n.Sp. 



(Plate ix., figs. 1-2.) 



Shell narrowly perforate, solid, large, orbicular, depressed, 

 sharply keeled at the periphery ; colour, above brownish-yellow, 

 darkening as the whorls increase, on the base chestnut radiately 

 painted with brownish-yellow, these tints reside solely in the 

 epidermis beneath which the shell is livid, peristome pink ; whorls 

 6 J, slowly and regularly increasing, above flattened ; sculpture, 

 fiist three whorls nearly smooth showing minute granulations 

 under the lens, on the outer whorls a few faint impressed spiral 

 lines are decussated by coarse irregular oblique costse, between 

 which are microscopic waved hair lines, at right angles to these 

 are short straight indentations, on approaching the aperture the 

 sculpture grows rougher and more uneven ; apex obtuse, apical 

 whorls minute with no break in colour or form to indicate an 

 embryonic shell ; suture impressed, deepening as it proceeds ; 

 bise rounded, gently curving in to the umbilicus, faintly spirally 

 and radiately striated ; epidermis glossy, scaling off readily in 

 large flakes ; aperture not descending, oblique, angularly lunate, 

 peristome thickened internally, the base of the columella thickened, 

 reflected over and nearly covering the perforation, margins of the 

 peristome connected by a thin white semi-transparent callus. 

 Diam. maj. 66, min. 55, alt. 30 mm. 



Type in Queensland Museum. 



H a b i t a t. — Fly River (Macgregor); a single example. There 

 is an unlocalised specimen in Dr. Cox's collection, and another in 

 the Australian Museum, each measuring 62 : 48 : 29 mm. 



